


Let the Wolves Enjoy My Bones

by TiesThatBind1899



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Grief/Mourning, burial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-05 17:29:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19045072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiesThatBind1899/pseuds/TiesThatBind1899
Summary: "Charles Smith hoped Arthur saw one last sunrise with his dying eyes.  Charles hoped he’d made amends."A one-shot in which Charles reflects on how he buried Arthur and how it felt to see so many of his friends fall.





	Let the Wolves Enjoy My Bones

**Author's Note:**

> "When I die, let the wolves enjoy my bones. When I die, let me go." --Wolves by Down Like Silver
> 
> Hi! This is my first time posting on Ao3, so please excuse any weird formatting errors. This is, I guess, a very angsty story following Charles after Arthur's death. But the word hope appears a lot so there's that. 
> 
> There's a line in the game where Charles tells John he buried Arthur. I wanted to explore that a little more, so here this is. I wrote it very quickly, so please excuse any typos or grammatical errors. I tried to comb through and fix them all, but a few always manage to slip by.
> 
> This is High Honor Arthur, by the way. :)

He found him near the top of the mountain, his face turned towards the sun.

At first, Charles hoped it wasn’t him, but he knew better. He knew.

Arthur’s eyes were still open, so Charles closed them. He hoped that what he saw last was the sunrise. He said, “Rest well, brother.”

It was a lot of work, getting him off that mountain. Arthur had lost weight in the last months of his life. Charles saw him once, at Beaver Hollow, down by the river. He was rinsing himself off, his chest bare. Charles could count his ribs. Arthur’s stomach had hollowed out. The notches of his spine pressed against his bloodless skin.

Charles had looked away. That’s when he knew. But it wasn’t until a few weeks later, as they went to the fort to rescue Eagle Flies, that Arthur told Charles he was sick.

“It’s pretty bad,” he’d said. “And it’s gonna get worse.”

He hadn’t sounded afraid, but Charles knew the sound of hidden fear. He’d tried to give him some words of wisdom. Comfort. He wasn’t sure it worked, but he hoped. He hoped Arthur saw one last sunrise with his dying eyes and hoped he’d made amends.

Even with the weight loss, though, the trek down the mountain was hard. Charles was scraped and bloodied by the time he got to Taima. He’d done everything in his power not to drop Arthur, to let him get any more filthy.

“Easy,” he told Taima as he pulled Arthur near.

She huffed, rolled her eyes to watch his progress. But she allowed him to settle Arthur on her back.

“I’m sorry,” he told his friend as he tied him down. It felt wrong, but there was no other way to go about it.

Arthur’s hair hung bloody and limp, and Charles frowned, realized his hat was gone. He cast his eyes back up the mountain and sighed.

He would go find that hat.

He spent hours. Climbing up and down, looking everywhere. He looked until the light got weak, and he had no choice but to give up, go back to Taima.

“I’m sorry,” he told Arthur again.

He rode out a few miles, until the land went completely to shadow. He did not feel safe camping so close to Beaver Hollow and the site where so many Pinkertons had been recently, where so many had died.

But he had no choice. Taima was getting tired, and so was he.

He camped near a cluster of trees, and the river was not far off. He could hear her roar. Usually, the sound of water soothed him. Tonight, he was not sure anything could.

He thought of John and Sadie. Abigail and Jack. The other women. Pearson, even. The Reverend and Uncle. Had they all gotten out safe?

Charles looked to the treeline, where Taima was. Then he looked to the spot he’d rested Arthur’s body. Away from the fire but close enough that he could hear if a scavenging animal got too close.

Arthur would have gotten those folks out. Charles was sure of this and he admired it. He hoped to do the same for the tribe. To help them out of this hell.

He slept only a little, and as soon as the sun rose, he packed up camp and moved on.

He knew the spot to put Arthur to rest. Rains Fall had mentioned it once--a strange little house built into the side of a grand mountain. Poppies grew there, Rains Fall had said. That was where Charles was headed.

Once he got there, he stood in the majesty of the mountain. He stood in its shade and felt a clean wind whisper around him.

This is the spot, he thought.

He climbed yet again, his dead brother on his shoulder.

Charles had never been afraid of hard work, but this--it weakened him.

It took him hours to dig a deep enough hole. He wanted it so deep no animal could ever dig him out.

Then he looked to Arthur again, looked at his face. He was bloodied. Filthy. His death had not been easy. It had been violent, like most of his life.

Charles poured some water from his canteen. He poured it over a cloth and cleaned Arthur’s face, his hands. He would go to rest with a clean face and hands--this Charles could give him.

Then he buried him, with a poppy on his chest. Charles remembered someone once telling him that poppies symbolized sleep and peace. Death, too. All of these were Arthur’s now.

It was a different kind of hard work, covering Arthur in dirt. Watching his pale face disappear beneath earth. But it had to be done.

Charles worked until the grave was covered. Then he built a cross. This he worked on for two days. He wanted it to be right.

On it, he carved a verse he’d heard Reverend preach once. At Beaver Hollow. They’d been seated around the fire, and Arthur was there, next to John and across from Charles. None of them had spoken in hours. And Reverend, somewhere else in the camp, began to read aloud from his bible.

“‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.’”

No one had said anything. Arthur muffled a cough, and John had stared into the fire hard, unblinking. Charles was not sure if either of them had even heard the Reverend. But Charles heard. He liked to think Arthur heard, too.

So this is what he put on Arthur’s cross. The first part, at least, the thing Charles remembered most.

It was done by sunset, and Charles put it at the head of Arthur’s grave.

He thought back to another time. A time when Hosea and Lenny were still living. They’d talked about graves. Charles had not been a part of the conversation. He sat away from them all, making arrows, but he listened. He always listened.

“What about you, Arthur?” Hosea had asked, on the topic of where they wanted to be buried and how.

“Me? I don’t care about that nonsense.”

He’d been healthy, then. Still acting hard.

“Oh, c’mon,” Hosea had said because he saw through the act, just as Charles had.

There had been a pause.

Then: “Face me to the west so I can watch the setting sun--remember all the fine times we had that way.”

“See, Tilly,” Hosea had said next. “I told you Arthur had a soul.”

“I hope your soul is at rest now, brother,” Charles said at Arthur’s grave. “I hope you found peace. You were a good man, in the end.”

Many years later, after he’d helped the tribe all he could and saw them fall apart anyway, after he’d gone to throwing fights in Saint Denis, John had found him. He appeared like a ghost, and Charles told him about Arthur’s grave.

He wasn’t sure John had ever gone to visit it. He isn’t sure until now, standing at Beecher’s Hope.

He saw Uncle’s cross first. Then Abigail’s--it is the newest, hardly worn by the sun and weather.

Then, John’s.

“‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’” his cross says.

Charles is not sure how they knew to use this as his epitaph, but he supposes it’s because John told them of Arthur’s grave. It is fitting.

He inhales, squints at the setting sun. Beecher’s Hope lies below him, empty and dark.

In Abigail’s letter, she had said she’d finally learned to read and write. And that her first letter would be her last. She was sick, she’d said, and would soon be dead.

_I know you have a family of your own now. But it’d mean a lot to me, if I knew you and Sadie was looking out after Jack, checking in on him every once in a while. He is a man now, but still young at heart. He will be all alone when I’m gone._

That’s what she’d said.

Charles goes into the house and finds dust. Cobwebs hang between dead flowers in vases. There are still two unwashed dishes in the sink. The beds are unmade, and in Jack’s room, the memories of his boyhood are still there, shadowed and lonely in the fading light.

 _I fear_ , Abigail’s letter said, _that Jack will do something foolish when I’m gone. He has a wildness in him. An anger. Like his father, I suppose. I’d always thought Jack was gentler than the both of us, John and me, but now I see different. Perhaps this violence runs in the blood. Or perhaps it’s only learned. I ain’t too sure on such things, but I know my son. I know his hatred for the government and the man who killed his father burns hot. I have tried to calm him and he placates me. But I know once I am gone, there will be nothing to stop him from seeking revenge. Arthur used to say it was a fool’s business, revenge. I’m inclined to agree. When John killed Micah, all that business with the law started up again. Please, please. Do not let my son take the same path as all the other men in his life. He is pure hearted, my boy. I know this at the very least._

Charles finds some papers on Jack’s desk. Quickly scrawled words, strings of a story. It seems he’s been writing about the gang. About Arthur and his father. Even Charles himself is mentioned on more than one occasion. The words don’t read like a journal but like a real story. A novel. And it is very good.

Charles sighs. He settles his hat back on his head and leaves Beecher’s Hope behind. He hopes it will not be empty forever. He hopes that story of Jack's will not remain unfinished.

Getting on his horse, he looks out at the land one more time. On the horizon are three crosses. Further east is another cross on a mountainside, surrounded by flowers. And a handful of other graves in between.

Charles hopes he can find Jack.

He does not think he can bear to bury any more friends.

**Author's Note:**

> Any constructive criticism would be appreciated! :)


End file.
